Ones to Watch | By Sabrina Davis

Hale & Hearty Soups

Hale & Hearty Soups opened a few months before The Soup Nazi made his
first appearance on NBC’s Seinfeld. Since then New York City
has seen many soup restaurants come and go or struggle to survive, but Hale &
Hearty Soups has been profitable almost from the start. Serving 15 to 20
scratch-made soups daily since July 1995, Hale &
Hearty has developed a repertoire of more than 120 soups, has grown to 20
stores, and is expanding beyond the city.

“We’ve had so many people come in or email us and say, ‘Would
you please open a store in X,’” says owner Simon Jacobs. “It’s
fascinating that there is interest in cities all over the U.S., but I want
to see how well we’re received just outside the city, then we plan
to open a lot more.”

The 20th store, scheduled to open this month in Livingston, New Jersey,
is Hale & Hearty’s first location outside of New York City. “I
spent a lot of time driving around earmarking towns I’d like to try.
Livingston was one of them. If we can make it work there, then it should
work just about anywhere,” Jacobs says.

Jacobs believes Hale & Hearty’s focus on quality ingredients
and scratch-made soup stocks give it the staying power of a national brand. “For
example, instead of using frozen corn, we start with fresh corn, on the
cob and in the husks,” he says.

Hale & Hearty’s original owners, Andrew and Jonathan Schnipper
rectified a lull in summer business early on by adding made-to-order sandwiches
and salads with scratch-made dressings. “The business has been profitable
year-round since 1997,” Jacobs says.

Jacobs joined the Schnippers as an investor in 2000 and bought them out
in 2005. “I saw the potential of making a good business a really great
business,” he says. He hired a new executive chef to replace Jonathan
Schnipper, who developed more than 70 soup recipes. “We’ve launched
25 new soups since last September—almost one a week,” Jacobs
says.